The Beautiful Dead

by Banner, Daryl

  Like a little, big cat.

  I softly sit on the edge of the bed and watch him, captivated. The gentle rhythm of his breathing. The smooth rolling of his heartbeat which I can hear, maybe even see in the pulsing of his cheek. His fingers twitch a few times, maybe because he’s dreaming. His eyes closed, his large hands clutching himself, his thighs pulled up to his chest. Like he’s protecting himself from the dark.

  I wonder what I’d dream of, curled up as he is … Maybe a paradise I could live in, free from this wretched nightmare where girls are pulled from the earth and run away from you, getting you in lots of trouble. Free from Judges who spear you with swords. Free from a surrogate dead mother named Helena who’s probably not many years older than you, who scolds you all the time and secretly hates your very existence.

  A world where I could live in a real house, with real Sunday dinners, snuggling in a warm bed with …

  With who?

  Then John has me by the throat with crazed eyes and bared teeth.

  “Sorry,” he breathes, letting go. “I thought—”

  I bring a hand up to my throat, nursing it. But really, it didn’t hurt in the least.

  “It’s okay,” I assure him. “I shouldn’t have … snuck up on you, I guess.”

  He pulls back to the opposite side of the bed, leaning against the headboard. He squints, attempting to make out my face in the dark. “What were you doing there, watching me like that?”

  “I …” It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I do. “I was fascinated, watching you sleep. I miss sleep.”

  He just studies my face skeptically, his eyes moving down to my throat. “Sorry I almost choked you.”

  “You couldn’t hurt a fly,” I say dryly.

  “Yes I can. And have.”

  Every time he says something cryptic like that, I think worse and worse on what’s held in his past … on what he isn’t telling me about his situation at the Human dwelling, wherever that is.

  Or, maybe he meant he’s literally hurt a fly. Maybe whitesmiths make flyswatters too. “Tell me something I don’t know. About you.”

  His eyes detach for a brief moment. Then, slowly, he gazes out the window as if to find the something he’s about to say. “I lost my parents when I was very young. They were taken from me.”

  I look down at his hands, unable to respond to that. He’s picking at a loose thread in the bed sheets, tugging at it, unraveling it.

  “I used to wish I had seen them die,” he adds quietly, “just to stop the nightmares. Every night, I dreamt a new way they might’ve been killed … a new torture they might’ve had to endure. Sometimes their deaths were instant and merciful. Sometimes slow. I had these dreams for years.” He points out the window. “Moon’s very bright tonight. You swear you can’t see it?”

  Distracted by his morbid recollection, I reluctantly lean forward, peering out the window at the grey sky that only shimmers and twists like restless shapeless dragons. That bright spot only Grimsky seems to see, I cannot.

  “I think I see it,” I lie anyway. “Very … bright.”

  Our eyes meet. He knows I can’t see the moon, I can tell in his expression. But I can also see he appreciates my effort in trying to comfort him. How my lying comforts him, I can’t quite explain. Maybe it makes me seem less of a freak to him … less of an abomination. More Human.

  “Do you know who … who took your parents?”

  He nods. No words, just nods.

  “Okay.” I judge his face carefully. “Can you say who? Or … or would you rather not—”

  “Zombies,” he answers. “They took my parents.”

  I’m beginning to get the feeling that he isn’t referring to any citizen of Trenton. “There is a lot,” I suddenly find myself admitting, “that I don’t know about … about my people. The more I know, the less I want to know.”

  “These zombies aren’t like your people.” His eyes are heavy, locked onto mine. “They have no feeling, no remorse, no anything. They eat. They have bone and rotting flesh for bodies. They eat people. Kids, too. They took my parents from me, and I … I will be damned if they ever dare to step foot in my direction. If they dare to breathe the air I breathe, those disgusting wastes of movement, of space and time and energy, whatever animates them—Life, I know it’s not. Soul, it’s not. If one dares to look at me, I’ll pull out its spine.”

  Well, that’s one way to put it.

  “I can’t imagine,” I finally mumble, “how you can put up living with someone—something—like me. How do you even trust me?”

  “Most of the time I don’t,” he admits.

  I have to watch his face to know he’s humoring me. At least I think he is. Maybe not. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t,” I tell him honestly. “You’d have every right.”

  I rise from the bed to leave when suddenly he grabs my wrist. I turn, surprised by the warm sensation. The look in his eyes as they meet mine, it smolders.

  “Take this.”

  I distractedly peer down and realize he’s placed something in my hand … a small, lackluster ring.

  “Proposing?” I tease him. “I barely know you.”

  “It’s just a gift.” He doesn’t smile. Very seriously he gently pushes my hand away, ring pressed into my palm. “I don’t want it anymore. You can have it.”

  Inelegantly, I try fitting it on my fingers. The only one that accepts the clunky ring is my thumb.

  “Thanks.” I hold my hand out. “Looks nice, I guess. Is this your way of paying rent?”

  “Thought you could use some jewelry.” He shrugs. “I never see you wear any, so …”

  I don’t look up at him, wary of what his sometimes-smoldering eyes can do, so I’m staring somewhere between the floor and his knees when I say, “Never thought you noticed.”

  “I notice everything,” he murmurs vaguely.

  I cross to the doorway. Without looking back I say, “Life must’ve been nice. I miss it without having known it at all. Things are so complicated now. Sorry,” I shake my head, excusing myself. “I won’t interrupt your sleep again. I need a drink … I’ll be back in the morning.”

  “I thought your kind don’t drink.”

  “I don’t know my kind.”

  On my way out of the bedroom, I see the tiny corpse of a cockroach squished against the floorboard by the bathroom. I don’t know why seeing it affects me like the stabbing memory of a friend I’d lost, but it does, and I let it. For such a little thing to survive the end of the world, only to be victim to the underside of a shoe.

  The Human John quietly locks the door behind me as I leave—the proper way this time.

  An hour or so later, Grim and I have had two glasses each of his wine, which does nothing for me. Soon after, we relocate to a remote part of town where a dead tree’s gnarled branches overhang a circle of benches like an umbrella. Seated at one, I tell him how wonderfully my first Reaping went. He’s staring at the sandy ground in silent concentration, his fingers tapping his knees.

  “So what now?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “I … I don’t know. It will be up to the Judge, I assume.”

  “Grim, who was your Reaper?”

  He glances up, surprised. “Why do you ask?”

  “You never told me.”

  “I, well … I wasn’t Raised here,” he adds patiently. “I was graciously taken in by the Mayor. I’m from another city. Remember?—I told you there’s others out there.”

  “You did,” I agree, looking him in the eye. “What was it like?”

  “My first home? It was … cramped. I didn’t like the city or its politics. That’s why I left and, well, I’m thankful to have found Trenton. And you.” He smiles gently, then changes topics. “I can tell you’re still worried.”

  “Is the Judge gonna put another sword through me?”

  Grim laughs—a little strained, I might add—then puts an arm around my shoulders. “You will be fine. The Judge may be a harsh woman, but she is
virtuous. Her only interest is protecting the town, protecting you, protecting me. There’s bad people out there, Winter.”

  Again, reminding me that one of the Judge’s roles is to protect us, I am forced to remember what John said about the “zombies” with bone and rotting flesh for faces who eat people … zombies who took away and presumably murdered his parents. I remember the words of the Judge herself when she took me in for questioning … when she asked if I were one of the Deathless … before utilizing that handy steel sword of hers. Fretfully thinking on all this, I’m spinning and spinning and spinning that ring on my thumb, John’s little gift, my humanly adornment.

  YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF.

  “Here,” he says, reaching for my hand. “You’re nervous. You need to—” And then he gasps, winces and yanks his hand away from mine.

  I frown at him. “What is it?”

  Nursing his finger, he says, “I think your ring cut me.”

  I smirk, studying the clunky gift from John, spinning it on my thumb some more. “Sorry. It was a … It was a thing I found in town. Might be sharp on the edges.”

  “Hey, do you wanna hang in the tulips again?” he asks, changing subjects again. “That perks you up.”

  “The Deathless,” I say evenly, steering us right back on topic. “Do they eat people? Is that true?”

  “I told you, I don’t know anything about them.”

  I sigh, irritated. “For someone who knows an awful lot, you sure seem to know so little.”

  That last comment might’ve hurt Grim’s feelings, but I don’t care. Why, when one thing goes right, everything else goes so terribly, terribly wrong?

  “There you are,” says a sour voice.

  I look up. Pouty Helena flanked by Marigold and the Judge, who is herself joined by her two bony henchmen. This is great. It is such a relief to find that my night will be getting better and better.

  “You weren’t home,” the Judge tells me unnecessarily. “We’ve been combing the streets looking for you. You are required to pay penance.”

  Of course I am. “Penance? What penance?—Penance for not being properly trained in the obviously delicate and clumsy art of raising the dead?”

  The gaunt, tight-lipped Judge smirks for an answer.

  Helena sighs. “Just come with us and let’s get this over with, you ungrateful girl. I’m so, so tired of this night and these heels are killing me.”

  “So be killed. Aren’t you dead already?”

  “I’m not in the mood for your smarts,” the Judge snaps. “I’m interested in saving a potentially dangerous girl and preserving what life she may have left to preserve. You,” she says, pointing at me with unwarranted drama, “are the one most directly responsible for the girl, and are required by Trenton law to lead the search party.”

  “Search party??—Are you kidding me? We’re actually going to go and find this crazy girl?”

  No one says anything for a moment, giving me a second to realize how insensitive my statement might’ve been. Who knows, had I been abandoned the instant after my Raise without a moment’s guidance or attention from the Refinery girls, what state I’d be in?

  “I’m sorry,” I say, amending my outcry. “That was indelicate of me. I … I will help find her.”

  “And I,” Helena adds nastily, reminding me she’s not pleased at having to suffer for my mistake. I’m neither pleased nor unpleased at witnessing her displeasure.

  Grimsky rises suddenly and stands by my side with purpose. “I’m going too.”

  I turn to him, shaking my head. “No, no. This is my slipup. I’m not having you put out for my mistake.”

  “Oh, how sweet,” Helena mumbles, rolling her eyes.

  Grim puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I try not to look annoyed. “I’m in this with you,” he says. “I’m helping however I can.”

  “I volunteer too,” Marigold adds with a cheery smile. “I don’t mind at all. I even brought my kit, should we find the girl and wish to perform any immediate Upkeep!”

  “So kind,” the Judge states, unmoved. “I must follow, if only to lend my sword in the unlikely case of danger.”

  With all eyes on me, I find suddenly I’m overwhelmed with the excessiveness of this search party. “Why must all of you be involved? I should go alone and find her.”

  “I represent Trenton,” the Judge declares theatrically, “and by extension, Helena of the Fourth, and by furthest extension, you, Winter of the now-Second. And by my sword, we will return with the girl, or return dead.”

  Any deader than we already are, we’d be dirt.

  “This is going to be so much fun!” Marigold chimes in, her fingers drumming the wooden casing of her Upkeep kit excitedly. “Might you recall if it was her left or right arm that was missing? That’d be most helpful to know!”

  Grimsky, I can’t believe he’s so willing to put himself on the line for me. Again. The Judge is locked down by duty and has no choice, I assume. And there’s Helena, of course … my unsworn enemy. You can’t pick your haters any worse than they can pick you.

  “You ready?” asks Grim privately in my ear.

  Or your lovers.

  “Right arm.” I look Marigold in the eye. “It was her right arm.”

  C H A P T E R – E I G H T

  A R M Y

  Out the north gates of Trenton, down the path and two lefts later, the seven of us—myself, Helena, Grim, Marigold, the Judge and her two bony cronies—are in the vastly dusty lowlands lovingly referred to as the Harvesting Grounds, from where all this trouble sadly originates. Maybe when I was alive, I was an accountant.

  “Lead the way,” the Judge orders me.

  I’m ambling in the general direction of where I think I may have ended up when I heard the ominous whispering and was grabbed at the ankle by a dead hand in the ground. Maybe I was a librarian.

  “In which way did she run?”

  “That way,” I declare, pointing in any direction. How the hell am I supposed to know?

  “This way?” The Judge sounds skeptical.

  “That way’s just as good as any.”

  Maybe when I was alive, I was a wedding planner.

  “She will react to her name,” Helena offers agitatedly. Of course she would make a point in sounding ever-so inconvenienced by this regretful turn in her week. As if I personally arranged this whole horrible thing.

  “Well?” asks the Judge patiently. “What’s her name?”

  I open my mouth, then realize belatedly that, well …

  “I didn’t give her one.”

  The six of them stop moving at once to collectively gape at me, like I’d just uttered the greatest offense, second-in-line to the Z-word.

  “What now?” I exclaim, exasperated.

  “A person’s name,” Helena starts, practically gathering her jaw from off the ground as she speaks, “is the absolute most important thing you give your Raise!”

  “When I was given Marigold, the whole world came together for me,” Marigold says with a dreamy smile.

  Even Grimsky quietly chimes in. “It grounds them.”

  “How could you be so negligent?” Helena barks. The angrier she gets, the thicker her accent grows. “I should just leave you here where I first found you. I should go home and—and—I am so angry right now I could spit!”

  “So spit,” I retort, marching off in the general direction of wherever. Who knows where a running dead girl could be so many hours later? She might have dashed to the other side of the world by now, or leapt off that ridiculously-high cliff, lost to the misty-whatever below.

  In a thousand pieces.

  We continue our trek across the vast nothingness of the Grounds for what feels like hours, neither producing a dead running girl nor a dead-dead girl. Neither mist nor fog nor whisper finds us, and we find nothing but endless vast vastness. Even my eyes are bored.

  Grimsky finds my side. The others trailing behind, I mumble, “This is pointless. We’ll never find her.”


  “It’s important that we do,” he insists.

  “Why? She ran away from me. Kicked me in the face, I might add, but no one seems too concerned about that.”

  “She knows nothing of this world. She’s lost and she’s scared, Winter, can’t you see? She can’t fend for herself.”

  “She doesn’t need to! We don’t eat! We don’t sleep!”

  “But we think, and we feel, and we fear,” he points out. “For all the things we don’t do anymore, we do new things. We must find her, and quickly.”

  I roll my eyes, trudging aimlessly on. “Well, shouldn’t we split up or something?”

  He shakes his head no. “That would be too unsafe. Everyone needs to be together when we find her. There’s no telling what state she’ll be in.”

  “What do you mean? What might’ve happened?”

  “It’s not so much what happens when a Raise is lost. It’s more what can happen to them.”

  His answers never answer. They only infuriate and inspire more questions I don’t have the time or energy to ask. Really, why does a person bother to be so helpful and equally so unhelpful?

  The truth hidden at the very bottom of all my angst is, I’m to blame. I’ve done this … to all of us. Regardless of how much I’d enjoy puncturing Helena with a blade of my own, I’ve not only upset her unnecessarily, I’ve also embarrassed her … and that’s not even mentioning the danger I’m apparently introducing to this entire group by throwing us on this quest to find the rogue Raise. Though no one will bother being straight with me about what “danger” there is out there, other than these enigmatic Deathless characters who I’ve not even seen. That’s a curious thing too, considering there once was only a tavern’s bathroom door between them and I.

  Of course, the very last thing I need to be worrying about, which is often the first thing I’m worrying about, is the Human in my house. John, who dreams about his murdered parents.

  Ouch. Something just bit my neck. What was—?

  “Run,” breathes the Judge, which inspires all of us to look at her, alarmed.